Dill is a very under rated herb. It’s not just for garnishing dishes with, but mixed with all sorts of other herbs, makes new potatoes really special. It’s very easy to sow and can be grown all year round. Just don’t put it outside until it warms up a bit. Like me it doesn’t like the cold.
Something that I’ve never tried growing before, but love cooking with is Lemon Grass. I got the seeds from Pennard Plants and will keep you updated on their progress.
The 29th February only comes round once every 4 years and this year is the year it happens. I did try to upload this yesterday, but for some reason it wouldn’t work. Maybe the computer got confused with the date, or maybe it was the Millennium computer bug finally taking hold?! Anyway I tried it today and it seemed to work perfectly. I’ve sown some more herbs, I like herbs, I use lots of them, so here goes. Another load of “Chives”, some more “Sweet Basil”, some “Coriander Calypso”, more “Giant of Italy Parsley” flat leaf, and finally “Moss Curled 2 Parsley”. I’m also giving you an update on how the Mint, Parsley and Basil are growing from the gift set that my friend Brenda gave me after Christmas. She was given it as a gift, but wasn’t going to use it, but knew a woman that would….namely ME!! The sun is shining, the days are getting longer and warmer, so Spring is nearly upon us. I’m getting very excited!!
How to sow Micro Greens, Mustard and Cress. It’s perfect for encouraging little ones to start growing….and older ones as well. Also I’ll be showing you how the seeds that I sowed about 2-3 weeks ago in the greenhouse are getting on.
Jill was amazing and so brave. Don’t think I could ever have done something like that.
Laurence Doherty is a TV and film background artist (what used to be called an extra) living in Northern Ireland, and he’s worked on many projects including Jon Wright’s previous film GRABBERS, and a little something called GAME OF THRONES (he was there at the Red Wedding!). Laurence has been a supporter of the Robot Overlords film from when it was first announced, so much so that Jon did that rare thing of giving Laurence a line in the movie. He’s the turncoat who cries ‘I know where he is!’ when Mr. Smythe demands that they hand over our hero Sean.
Laurence, behind Gillian Anderson, obeying the first rule of Extras Club: always latch on to the talent.
In a world where the likes of Donald Trump get all the headlines, Laurence is one of the great unsung good guys, and he’s become a friend of mine. So, when I heard…
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Today was the last day of the kids Half Term holiday, so we decided to go and have a wander. We didn’t want to travel too far because we only had the morning and the first part of the afternoon free. And after the long day we had yesterday, a gentle stroll was in order. We decided to visit Selsdon Wood Nature Reserve, which is only about a 30 minute drive from our house. As we were driving there I suddenly realise, how I hate Purley Cross on way system. What a nightmare that section is. But we manage to work our way through it and out the other side and very soon found what we were looking for. When we arrived we changed into our wellies and off we went to follow the “Green” trail.
It’s always good to look at the map before you go walking, then you can work out where you got lost.
It was a cold morning, so scarves, gloves and hats were also needed. As we walked along, you could hear the birds singing in the trees and the wood peckers drumming away, airplanes in the sky and cars on the road (ah nature is wonderful). The field that we crossed early on wasn’t muddy at all, which was rather odd, but I was sure that we’d find some very soon. George found some lovely sticks that were perfect for walking. Most of the trees were leafless, but then that’s what you’d expect for this time of year. There are a lovely variety of trees in the wood, and I pointed out numerous Oaks and Silver Birches to the kids. The wind was a little on the bracing side as we walked along. The signs for the routes were very clearly marked out, so amazingly we never got lost, which is a miracle! We finally came across some mud. About time to be honest. What is a walk if you don’t come across mud? It was very slippery as well, so we all had to be very careful how we moved.
The mud made farty noises when we tried to remove out wellies from it.
The wood is very popular with dog walkers and we saw lots of happy dogs bounding around. Lots of trees had fallen down in various storms, some more recent than other. That’s one thing I would love to see and that is a tree being blown over. The sound must be amazing as it crashes to the ground. One tree however, had been felled by a storm, but had never actually made it to the ground. It decided to nestle itself between the branches of another tree, and is now a home for some wonderful fungi which is now growing up it.
This tree decided to nestle in the branches of a neighbouring tree.
We worked our way back to the car, and then home. We’d been wandering about in the Nature Reserve for a couple of hours. Just as we were crossing the field, heading back to our car we saw a gentleman walking his husky type dog. He asked us, “Do you have a dog with you? Will it jump out?” I replied and said “No we have a gold fish and 6 chickens!” I bet he wished he’d never asked. The kids and I then wondered if you could buy harnesses for the chickens so we could take them for a walk next time. But they must be able to flap their wings. Don’t think we could take the fish though.
As the kids are on half term this week, we always like to go to a couple of places. They’ve both been revising most of this week, and after you’ve been working so hard you need to have a bit of play time. I asked them both where they wanted to go and they immediately replied “Natural History Museum and Science Museum!!” I know we go there a lot, but it’s free to get in. Although now they ask for a donation of £5 per person. I think this is a bit much. Ok if you take a map, then yes, charge for that. But they get lots of money from their gift shop and the food places are rather expensive, as well as some exhibitions you have to pay to go and see. I’m trying to save the pennies so we take a packed lunch with us. After having got the train ticket, where Emily being 16 now has an adult fare, so with 2 adults and 1 child the train alone cost £30.20! I’ll stop moaning now and tell you about our day. On the train journey up, we played the A, B, C game. Having done boy and girls names, we then had to name countries. The only letter that doesn’t have a country is “X”. George got a bit confused sometimes and kept naming US States instead. I was sitting next to a woman reading a book, and I could sense the despair on her face at times. We finally arrived at the Natural History Museum, but the queue was biblical, so we decided to go to the Science Museum first. Even that had a bit of a queue, but it was moving fairly fast so it didn’t take us long to get in. Again they ask for a donation of £5 per person, and would you like a map. I said “No thank you” to the map as we knew where we were going, well almost. We headed straight up to the 3rd floor to find somewhere quiet to sit and have our lunch. The ground floor was very noisy and busy. I like a bit of quiet, too much noise and disorganisation makes be uneasy. We found a bench and ate lots (I always take plenty of food with me on our little trips, after all I do have a George with me), and when we’d finished we went to the “Flight Room”. It’s amazing to think that aeroplanes have only been around for about 100 years. Oh, how they’ve changed in that time. Much safer now, which is great. I bet the Wright Brothers never imagined, in their wildest dreams how aircraft would revolutionise the way we live now. I really wouldn’t have wanted to have been in any of the early flying machines, especially the airships.
Dinosaurs of the Air, is quite right. Filling them with Hydrogen! What were they thinking?
George tried his hand at being an air traffic control officer. I hope he never takes that up as a career. We all went and saw the cockpit of Concorde which is very small indeed. Must go to Brooklands Museum to see the racing cars and Concorde one day. It’s not far away. I remember when I was younger, that at 3.30pm every afternoon Concorde would fly over our house. The noise was unbelievable. You always heard it before you saw it. We then went down to level 2 to find the “Clockmakers’ Museum”. It’s something we’ve not seen, ever, I don’t think. It’s very interesting, with clocks and watches of all different shapes and sizes, some are still working and others have given up the ghost, but look fantastic.
This was one of the clocks still working. Puts us to shame with all our digital ones these days.
We were around in this section, just as it came up to 1pm and loads of the clocks started to chime. All at slightly different times and notes. We wondered what it would have been like when they all chimed at noon. Very noisy, but musical in a strange sort of way. We also looked at the “Virgin Media” section where there were some wonderfully frames photos. These were a selection of some of the first photos ever taken, and were so beautiful. Next it was down to level G for “Exploring Space”. Now it was heaving and not wanting to sound ungrateful, but once you’ve been to Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, well it’s all a bit quaint in the Science Museum. I do like looking at the rockets and stuff, especially the one that looks like it comes from a James Bond film.
Wasn’t this in Moonraker?
Finally in the Science Museum we went down to the Lower Ground, because they have an area called “The Garden”. However, this was only for children aged 3-6 years, so I don’t think I would have stood a chance in convincing anyone I was in that age bracket. So we left and found a little quiet place to sit for 10 minutes to have something else to nibble on, before we left to had a go at getting in to see the dinosaurs. Amazingly enough the queue was very short, which was brilliant, so we were in very quickly. Again they tried to give you a map (been so many times, we could do it with our eyes closed. But then we wouldn’t see anything!) And ask for a donation of £5 per person. If I’d have given £15 per museum, plus the train fare that would have cost us over £60! I wanted a cheap day out. We headed straight for the Dinosaurs as the queue for this was very short. They’ve changed it round, so you don’t go in where you usually do, but you see the T-Rex first, rather than half way through. All a bit confusing for those of us who expect our dinosaurs in a certain order. The T-Rex is as impressive as ever, but some children were scared. To be honest quite rightly so, it’s a big bugger when it thrashes about and roars. Emily spotted a wonderful shadow on the ceiling, it was cast by a dinosaur skeleton. Something you’d expect to see during a tense moment in a dinosaur movie.
Skeleton shadow on the ceiling, and bizarrely a light sabre in the bottom left of the picture.
After seeing the “Creepy Crawlies”, “How Babies are Made”, it’s always good for them to realise what I had to go through, and “Mammals”, it was then time to leave and go and meet Mark and some of his work colleagues. There were 8 of us that went to have dinner in Wagamama’s. Very tasty food and filling, even for George. Whilst we were having dinner, Mark surprised me with a little present. He asked me to close my eyes and put out my hands. I told him that it wasn’t his birthday until Sunday, but did as I was instructed. He placed something in my hands and then I had to open my eyes. I squealed with excitement.
IT’S BOOK NUMBER 3!!
Click HERE to pre order now!
Then everyone, except me, went off to the IMAX to watch Star Wars again in 3D. I didn’t go, because I’ve already seen it, and even though I’d like to see it again, an IMAX screen isn’t for me. I don’t do well when the screen moves the way they do. It sends my brain all weird. The train journey home was eventful. We had a very drunk young lady in our carriage, who kept telling us what station she needed to get off. She kept falling asleep and then talking in her sleep. She kept waking up at every stop and asking if we’d reached her stop yet. That doesn’t sound too bad, until she started swearing at some other passenger and accusing her of taking photos of her. Whether this other passenger was taking photos, I don’t know, but the drunk lady was getting very abusive. We pulled into a station and someone very calmly told the drunk lady that we’d arrived at her stop. She got off the train still swearing. However, we hadn’t reached her stop yet, but she was so drunk she didn’t realise until the train was pulling away and then we could still hear her swearing at us as the train pulled away. Then peace returned to our carriage. I arrived home just before 7pm, and had some quiet time. I then picked Mark and the kids up from the station just after 9.30pm and when we all arrived back home, we were all exhausted so were all in bed by 10pm.
You know that I like to try new things. Well here’s one for you all to try. These used to be called Flower Sprouts, but have now changed their name (by Deed Poll) to Brukale. They are a cross between a Brussels Sprout and Kale. I have sown these many years before and they did fairly well, but they were very new. So now they’ve been improved, I’m hoping for great things this year. The variety is called “Petit Posy” and are a member of the Brassica family. If you can find them please do give them a go. I’ll keep you updated on their progress and hopefully in the autumn I’ll show you how to cook them.
More brassicas have been sown today, it’s all very exciting. Today I’ve sown 2 varieties of Cabbage, firstly “Primo (11)” and also “All year Round Blend”. These have both grown really well in previous years, so I’m expecting great things from them this year, and so are the chickens because they’ll get all the outer leaves. I also sowed a load of Kohl Rabi “Modrava F1”. Again these have grown very well in previous years. I did have one that split in 4 once and that looked rather odd, but I grew it, so I shouldn’t really be surprised. You can also get a mixed packet of Kohl Rabi, they look wonderful when they grow because they’re all sorts of different shapes and colours. Still lots to do in the greenhouse, loads more to sow. I’ll be very busy over the next couple of weeks.
I had good fun chatting with Steven Hesse over at the Geek Apocalypse podcast. We discuss the kinds of people you meet at MCM Comic Cons, 2000 AD, Pat Mills, indie movies vs Hollywood movies, film tie-ins, world building, plot holes, Robot Overlords and all sorts of stuff.
You can stream it here, or if you get your podcasts from iTunes click here.
There will be a video version at some point and I’ll plonk it here when it arrives, in the meantime enjoy and, if you like drinking games, take a shot every time Steven says “super duper fun”, you’ll be plastered before you know it!
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